Why This Surliness Towards Clickers (and other great questions)

I'm still not satisfied that we have heard the last word on dogs' language, capacity for deductive reasoning, or cognitive abilities.  We really are only at the beginning stages of relevant research, and I'm keeping an open mind based on many years of observation.  Incidentally, I think that some of the research could be taken more than one way - example, this study on foraging behavior.  Did the dog make a logical choice or just one based on level of attraction?  If you believe the latter, how would you prove that?  Until we are actually able to know more about dogs' decision making processes, I think we are premature to assign a lower capacity where a higher one might exist.  IMO, better to just keep an eye on future studies.

http://www.null-hypothesis.co.uk/science/spoof/articles/dog_forage_pet_friend_bed

 

Incidentally, no one is saying that so-called "natural dog training" isn't ok.  I'm not opposed to any method of training that works and is dog-frirendly.  But, I don't think you can argue that clicker training, or lure/reward training is obsolete because of it, and I don't think you or anyone else fully understands the nature of canine cognition.  What I do think is obsolete are those who are unwilling to try the least invasive most minimally aversive techniques before they opt for devices or techniques that cause pain, discomfort, or anxiety for the dog.  Seems to me that's just common sense. 

 

Lee Charles Kelley

I know some people are defensive of an animal's capabilities for thought, but the simple fact is, you've either got language or you don't. That's a biological fact. That's one very clear and specific dividing line. In The Symbolic Species (1997) Terrence Deacon, a neuroscientist at Boston University, writes, “Species that have not acquired the ability to communicate symbolically cannot have acquired the ability to think this way either.”  It’s apparent that dogs don’t communicate by using symbols, so according to Deacon they can’t possibly make symbolic references. That, in and of itself, is a  limiting factor in  regards to the dog's ability to engage in all kinds of higher dognitive functions.

Then I suppose that you either didn't read the part of my post wherein my dog communicated with neighbor dogs some specific info, with nothing more than a few barks. That, or it is ignored since it won't fit in the theory of dogs not having some level of thought and consciousness beyond just a blind energy reaction to whatever energy perturbances.

Nothing said here has disproved that dogs don't have symbolic language, if indeed, symbolic language is required to have communication. Once again, human arrogance arises. "He don't talk the way I do, so he can't think it." I use a hand signals for obedience, too. Is that not a symoblism that communicates a thought? Or should I say, prove that it isn't.

Dogs most definitely communicate. They communicate with body language and with verbal language. I can have a dog outside, too far across the yard to know that I'm getting their dinners ready. One dog in the house barks and the dog outside comes running and makes a beeline for his cage so he can eat. Other barking wouldn't have that effect. It indicates to me that there is something in the inflection of the barks that absolutely functions as a language.

corgipower

Dogs most definitely communicate. They communicate with body language and with verbal language. I can have a dog outside, too far across the yard to know that I'm getting their dinners ready. One dog in the house barks and the dog outside comes running and makes a beeline for his cage so he can eat. Other barking wouldn't have that effect. It indicates to me that there is something in the inflection of the barks that absolutely functions as a language.

 

Dogs communicate with verbal language? Really? Verbal language refers specifically to the use of words. What words has your dog used? Isn't it just possible that what you interpret as "inflections" in the barks (which somehow count the same as words in your mind) are just unconscious expressions of different emotional states? If you step on a dog's paw is his vocalization (note this word here -- vocalization,not verbalization) somehow NOT going to be an expression of his emotional state? If he's angry or aggressive is his barking NOT going to reflect his emotional state? So how does the dog who's inside the house, and knows that dinner is on the way somehow become capable of intentionally using a certain inflection in his voice to report information to his cohort that it's time to eat, and not just express his unconscious emotional state of excitement that dinner is one the way, and nothing more?

I don't mean to beat up on you, CorgiP, and it's kind of pointless for me to keep explaining this, but here goes:

There are two types of communication:

The first is the intentional reporting of information with the expectation that whomever you're communicating with is capable of understanding what you're saying. This absolutely requires the use of symbols, written, spoken, or signed (as in sign language). Inflection provides information about one's internal state, but it doesn't count as language, in and of itself. This first type of communication also requires that whoever is reporting information has to have what's called a theory of mind*.

The second type of communication is the expression of an internal state, which even in humans is most mostly done unconsciously. This can be done with the use of symbols (written, spoken, or signed), or with unconscious use of body language, facial expressions, sighs, tears, laughter, what have you. It's not the same thing as reporting information. When the second dog in your example responds as he does, it's not because the first dog deliberately and with conscious intent reported information to him. You can't report information without the use of symbols. (Expressions of emotion aren't symbols.)

And going back to one of Ron2's questions in another post, the simple biological fact is dogs do not have the cognitive architecture for language (Broca's area, Wernicke's area, etc.) They don't have a hyoid bone in their throats so they cannot possibly express themselves verbally. They DO express their emotions, and quite freely, and quite often, and quite wonderfully, But not as a way of intentionally reporting information (which, once again, would require the use of symbols, written, spoken, or signed, and what's called a theory of mind). So when one dog barks in an excited way at dinner time he's not reporting information to the other dog; he's only barking, which is an expression of arousal. The other dog recognizes the emotion in the first dog's voice, which sparks an emotion in him. So he comes running.

Feel free to entertain yourselves with fantasies about a dog's linguistic abilities all you want. I've been studying this topic for over 15 years. And I've been "donating" my time* on sites like this to explain why this silly belief in a dog's ability to use language is such a fantasy. I've probably discussed this issue with thousands of dog owners and dog trainers. And not one of them, including you, has yet come up with a situation that can't be explained purely through emotion, and which does NOT require conscious thought, ToM, or the use of symbolic language.

But feel free to entertain yourself with your fantasies if you like.

LCK 

*Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc.—to oneself and others. It enables one to understand that mental states can be the cause of—and thus be used to explain and predict—others’ behavior. Being able to attribute mental states to others and understanding them as causes of behavior means, in part, that one must be able to conceive of one's own mind as a means of representing reality, through an ability to be aware of one's own sensory input as a representation of the natural world (in other words to not only see and hear things, but to also know that you're seeing and hearing them), as well as an ability to form abstractions, concepts, and symbols which represent reality. That's just the first step. The second is to understand that other beings have minds and that the mental representations of the world being made in their minds do not necessarily reflect reality and can be different from one’s own. It also means one must be able to maintain, simultaneously, different representations of the world. It is a ‘theory’ of mind in that such representations are not "directly observable". Many other human abilities—from skillful social interaction to language use—are said to involve a theory of mind.

If you can explain to me how a dog can even have first level cognition, an awareness of his own mental states, that would, once again, only be a first step to having a theory of mind. He would also have to be able to be aware that people and other dogs have mental states of their own, which are both similar and capable of being dissimilar to one's own mental states. Prove dogs have that ability and we can all go home... 

**Why? Because the more dog owners believe in this fantasy that dogs can think and use language, the more likely it is that when the dog does something "bad," the owner will think it's been done deliberately, and will punish the dog to let him know he can't get away with it, etc. If people have the realistic, down-to-earth view I'm expressing, the less likely it becomes for such owners to mistreat their dogs.

LCK 

Lee Charles Kelley

Prove dogs have that ability and we can all go home... 

**Why? Because the more dog owners believe in this fantasy that dogs can think and use language, the more likely it is that when the dog does something "bad," the owner will think it's been done deliberately, and will punish the dog to let him know he can't get away with it, etc. If people have the realistic, down-to-earth view I'm expressing, the less likely it becomes for such owners to mistreat their dogs.

LCK 

Well, why should I prove anything to you when I have seen nothing that proves your theories? :) As for the dog coming when another dog indicates that it's dinner time, if it was merely a matter of the dog who is outside responding to an excited bark, then he would come when other barking occured. He doesn't. Which indicates that the bark at dinner time is different from any other barks. Which *is* communication.

To my knowledge, the people who have taken part in this thread do not believe that dog's do "bad" things deliberately. I certainly don't. I don't even think dogs do "bad" things. They might have inappropriate behaviors, but those behaviors are not "bad", merely undesirable in my world.

And if you are at all suggesting that people whose view points differ from yours are mistreating their dogs, then I am done with your theories.

Lee Charles Kelley

And I've been "donating" my time* on sites like this to explain why this silly belief in a dog's ability to use language is such a fantasy.

We all are "donating" our time on this site.

I'm not sure this has anything to do with this particular discussion, but I just watched Dog Genius again tonight and they have a couple real interesting experiments on that show.

One is where a woman puts a treat on the floor and tells her dog to leave it and sits down. After a moment, she closes her eyes and the dog goes and gets the treat. They did this over and over, in different types of experiments. It was concluded that the dog is aware that the person can see him when her eyes are open or otherwise unimpeded. The dog is aware of something more than it's own emotions and existence there. 

Another experiment was a dog who knew the names of about a hundred items and would retrieve the named item from a line-up of many items. There was one item among the line-up that the dog had never learned. When asked to retrieve the GBG (a nonsensical name given to the item), he was able, by process of elimination, to get the "new" item.  

I have a lot of respect for anyone who has been studying dogs for 15 years, but we are learning new things all the time and I think it's a mistake to discount the possibility of a dog's ability just because we haven't examined it deeply enough yet, or found a way to discover how the dog thinks. I'm certainly not saying that dogs speak English or verbalize, but the different vocalizations they make could very well be a way of communication that comes from emotion AS WELL AS a desire to communicate something to another dog or a person. I don't see why it has to be limited to emotions.

 

corgipower

if it was merely a matter of the dog who is outside responding to an excited bark, then he would come when other barking occured. He doesn't. Which indicates that the bark at dinner time is different from any other barks. Which *is* communication.

Of course the bark at dinner time is different from other barks. The dog is feeling a very specific emotion, and his vocalization reflects that. I already went into that in my previous post. When a dog is experiencing a distinct emotion -- having his paw stepped on, feeling aggressive, becoming excited that he's about to eat -- whatever vocalization he exhibits will reflect just that one emotion, or set of emotions. As I've also said, dogs are geniuses when it comes to pattern recognition, so it would be no great feat for the 2nd dog to pick up on this difference in the emotional tone of the 1st dog's bark. Plus there could be any number of other variables you and I wouldn't be aware of, or even be capable of being aware of, while it would be second nature for the dog's to pick up on these things. You're making all kinds of assumptions here, without really thinking it through.

corgipower

And if you are at all suggesting that people whose view points differ from yours are mistreating their dogs, then I am done with your theories.

I'm not sure where you got that idea. I was making a general comment.

LCK
 

FourIsCompany

a woman puts a treat on the floor and tells her dog to leave it and sits down. After a moment, she closes her eyes and the dog goes and gets the treat. They did this over and over, in different types of experiments. It was concluded that the dog is aware that the person can see him when her eyes are open or otherwise unimpeded. The dog is aware of something more than it's own emotions and existence there.

 

You may have missed my explanation of this on the "Theory of Mind" thread, but what you saw on TV was not a real scientific experiment done by a real cognitive scientist. The behavior you saw was, in all likelihood, a learned behavior, and not in any indicative of a true theory of mind. (You can find my explanation on that thread if you care to look for it; I don't have the time to go into it again.)

FourIsCompany

Another experiment was a dog who knew the names of about a hundred items and would retrieve the named item from a line-up of many items. There was one item among the line-up that the dog had never learned. When asked to retrieve the GBG (a nonsensical name given to the item), he was able, by process of elimination, to get the "new" item.  

The GBG item probably wasn't found by a process of elimination. That's going way beyond what the structure of the canine brain can accommodate. (Sorry, but if the dognitive architecture isn't there, it's unlikely that the behavior could be the result of that kind of thinking.) It's far more likely that the dog was picking up mental images from whoever was giving him his cues.

This sounds very similar to the "Clever Hans" situation of the horse who knew all kinds of things like this, only it turns out that the horse was picking up unconscious cues coming from his owner/trainer. Also, for this "experiment" to be valid, you'd have to not only have someone the dog didn't know giving him the cues, but the person would also have to be totally unaware of what the objects were, and new names would have to be given to them so that there wouldn't be any of the kind of unconscious cueing I'm talking about going on. 

FourIsCompany

I have a lot of respect for anyone who has been studying dogs for 15 years

I appreciate that. 

FourIsCompany

but we are learning new things all the time and I think it's a mistake to discount the possibility of a dog's ability just because we haven't examined it deeply enough yet, or found a way to discover how the dog thinks. I'm certainly not saying that dogs speak English or verbalize, but the different vocalizations they make could very well be a way of communication that comes from emotion AS WELL AS a desire to communicate something to another dog or a person. I don't see why it has to be limited to emotions.

I think we should examine a dog's abilities. As much as possible. But the real cognitive scientists who are doing that are designing their experiments very, very carefully. Others, like the ones you describe, aren't really interested in learning the truth. They seem more intent on proving exactly what people want to believe. There's more money in it for them. (I'm not kidding.)

As for the idea that communications come from a desire to communicate something to the other dog or person, as I said before, according to cognitive scientists, there are two forms of communication. One is intentional (which is what you're suggesting dogs are capable of), and which requires the use of symbols, written, spoken, or signed. It also requires a theory of mind. You're also looking at it as if intentional communication would be a valuable tool for dogs, but it wouldn't. In evolutionary terms it would actually hinder a wolf's or dog's ability to read his pack members' emotions. Nature already has an effective mechanism for doing that, one that doesn't require the kind of large brain capacity that humans, dolphins, whales (and some apes seem to) have. A theory of mind, and the ability to use symbols would slow down a wolf's or dog's reflexes and response times. Simply being in tune with one another emotionally is more efficient means of communication. Wolves use that ability when they hunt. And dogs have expanded on it to an amazing extent. Think for just a moment of stories you've heard of dogs who've been lost or abandoned and yet found their owners again, even if it meant crossing several state lines, etc. How do they do THAT unless there's something more than logical, abstract, and symbolic thinking going on. In fact, if dogs had those abilities, they probably couldn't function as well as they do.

I just glanced up at the header; this discussion is realllllllly wayyyyyyyyy off the topic of clicker training, isn't it? 

LCK

For reading pleasure, if anyone has the ability to obtain these studies. The full studies have the interesting information, but here's just the abstracts from each:

Rooney, N.J; Bradshaw, W.S. (2005). Social cognition in the domestic dog: behavior of spectators towards participants in interspecific games. Animal Behavior, 72, 343-352.

Abstract:

Social cognition, in particular the derivation of social information from observation of interactions between members of a social group, has been widely investigated in primates, but it has received little attention in other social mammals, although it has been anecdotally reported in the domestic dog, Canis familiaris. We recorded the behaviour of dogs (‘spectators’) that had observed controlled interactions between a human and a dog (the ‘demonstrator’) competing for an object, and that were subsequently allowed to interact freely with both participants. When the competitions were playful, as indicated by signals performed by the human, the spectator was more likely to approach the winner first and/or more rapidly, suggesting that winners of games are perceived as desirable social partners. When the human did not perform play signals, changing the social context from play to contest over a resource, spectators were slower to approach either of the participants, suggesting that participants in contests were less desirable as social partners than participants in games. If the dog was prevented from seeing the game, it still reacted differently to the winner and the loser, but its behaviour was not the same as after games that it had seen. We conclude that spectator dogs gain information from the players’ subsequent behaviour as well as from direct observation of the game.

Miklosi, A; Polgardi, R; Topal, J; & Csanyi, V. (2000). Intentional behaviour in dog-human communication: an experimental analysis of "showing" behaviour in the dog. Animal Cognition, 159-166.

Abstract:

Despite earlier scepticism there is now evidence for simple forms of intentional and functionally referential communication in many animal species. Here we investigate whether dogs engage in functional referential communication with their owners. "Showing" is defined as a communicative action consisting of both a directional component related to an external target and an attentiongetting component that directs the attention of the perceiver to the informer or sender. In our experimental situation dogs witness the hiding of a piece of food (or a favourite toy) which they cannot get access to. We asked whether dogs would engage in "showing" in the presence of their owner. To control for the motivational effects of both the owner and the food on the dogs’ behaviour, control observations were also staged where only the food (or the toy) or the owner was present. Dogs’ gazing frequency at both the food (toy) and the owner was greater when only one of these was present. In other words, dogs looked more frequently at their owner when the food (toy) was present, and they looked more at the location of the food (toy) when the owner was present. When both the food (toy) and the owner were present a new behaviour, "gaze alternation", emerged which was defined as changing the direction of the gaze from the location of the food (toy) to looking at the owner (or vice versa) within 2 s. Vocalisations that occurred in this phase were always associated with gazing at the owner or the location of the food. This behaviour, which was specific to this situation, has also been described in chimpanzees, a gorilla and humans, and has often been interpreted as a form of functionally referential communication. Based on our observations we argue that dogs might be able to engage in functionally referential communication with their owner, and their behaviour could be described as a form of "showing". The contribution of domestication and individual learning to the well-developed communicative skills in dogs is discussed and will be the subject of further studies.

Dumas, C & Page, D.D. (2006). Strategy planning in dogs (Canis familiaris) in a progressive elimination task. Behavioural Processes, 73, 22-28.

Abstract:

Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) were administered a progressive elimination task in which they had to visit and deplete three baited sites. Dogs were brought back to the starting point after each visit to any site whether they had made a correct or an incorrect choice. In Experiment 1 (n = 10) the results revealed that the dogs randomly selected among the sites when they were equidistant from the starting point whereas they relied on the least distance rule when one of sites was closer to the starting point than were the other sites. In Experiment 2 (n = 12), the dogs first chose the left target when angular deviation between adjacent targets varied whether the least angular deviation was on the right of the left. Results are interpreted in terms of Gibson’s hypothesis about cooperative hunters. The discussion also emphasizes comparisons with cats (i.e., solitary hunters).

Ward, C. & Smuts, B.B. (2007) Quantity-based judgements in the domestic dog (Canis familiaris). Animal Cognition, 10, 71-80.

Abstract:

We examined the ability of domestic dogs to choose the larger versus smaller quantity of food in two experiments. In experiment 1, we investigated the ability of 29 dogs (results from 18 dogs were used in the data analysis) to discriminate between two quantities of food presented in eight different combinations. Choices were simultaneously presented and visually available at the time of choice. Overall, subjects chose the larger quantity more often than the smaller quantity, but they found numerically close comparisons more difficult. In experiment 2, we tested two dogs from experiment 1 under three conditions. In condition 1, we used similar methods from experiment 1 and tested the dogs multiple times on the eight combinations from experiment 1 plus one additional combination. In conditions 2 and 3, the food was visually unavailable to the subjects at the time of choice, but in condition 2, food choices were viewed simultaneously before being made visually unavailable, and in condition 3, they were viewed successively. In these last two conditions, and especially in condition 3, the dogs had to keep track of quantities mentally in order to choose optimally. Subjects still chose the larger quantity more often than the smaller quantity when the food was not simultaneously visible at the time of choice. Olfactory cues and inadvertent cuing by the experimenter were excluded as mechanisms for choosing larger quantities. The results suggest that, like apes tested on similar tasks, some dogs can form internal representations and make mental comparisons of

quantity.

Viranyi, Z; Topal, J; Miklosi, A; & Csanyi, V. (2006). A nonverbal test of knowledge attribution: a comparative study on dogs and children. Animal Cognition, 9, 13-26.

Abstract:

The sensitivity of eleven pet dogs and eleven 2.5-year-old children to others’ past perceptual access was tested for object-specificity in a playful, nonverbal task in which a human Helper’s knowledge state regarding the whereabouts of a hidden toy and a stick (a tool necessary for getting the out-of-reach toy) was systematically manipulated. In the four experimental conditions the Helper either participated or was absent during hiding of the toy and the stick and therefore she knew the place(s) of (1) both the toy and the stick, (2) only the toy, (3) only the stick or (4) neither of them. The subjects observed the hiding processes, but they could not reach the objects, so they had to involve the Helper to retrieve the toy. The dogs were more inclined to signal the place of the toy in each condition and indicated the location of the stick only sporadically. However the children signalled both the location of the toy and that of the stick in those situations when the Helper had similar knowledge regarding the whereabouts of them (i.e. knew or ignored both of them), and in those conditions in which the Helper was ignorant of the whereabouts of only one object the children indicated the place of this object more often than that of the known one. At the same time however, both dogs and children signalled the place of the toy more frequently if the Helper had been absent during toy-hiding compared to those conditions when she had participated in the hiding. Although this behaviour appears to correspond with the Helper’s knowledge state, even the subtle distinction made by the children can be interpreted without a casual understanding of knowledge-formation in others.

DPU

Not sure if you have real experience with dealing with a true DA dog so I am not sure you would know what to say on the voice recording

Dave, it is was my turn to do dry humor, like you do. I was remembering how when you watched my video, Pags sat and downed at the sound of my voice. I realize it may have been happenstance but I couldn't resist the chance to be cheeky.

Lee Charles Kelley

Feel free to entertain yourselves with fantasies about a dog's linguistic abilities all you want. I've been studying this topic for over 15 years. And I've been "donating" my time* on sites like this to explain why this silly belief in a dog's ability to use language is such a fantasy. I've probably discussed this issue with thousands of dog owners and dog trainers. And not one of them, including you, has yet come up with a situation that can't be explained purely through emotion, and which does NOT require conscious thought, ToM, or the use of symbolic language.

But feel free to entertain yourself with your fantasies if you like.

Don't you know? 4IC is the only one who can be surly.

I, too, have thought about and read about cognitive abilities, the level required for a measurable intelligence, theories that it is based on number of neurons and the amount of complexity between the neurons leading to a stage of self-awareness, deductive reasoning, wherein does the notion begin that I am I, separate from the world, so how do I interact and communicate.

Because you feel you have explained it with energy does not make it so. I have stated some specific questions or challenges which you have yet to answer. Which is your right. IMO, just an exchange of energy or emotion doesn't fully explain it. We have emotion, including you. Having emotion does not prevent us from having reasoning and language. But again, English is not the only language in the world. Dolphins have specific and detailed language. As do whales. And so do dogs. Again, you have glossed over my dog communicating coordinates to neighbor dogs who understood it and took up positions of observation based on some of his barks. Nor does the pure emotion or unthinking energy explain the various types of sound he can make which do include inflection, pitch, volume, and timbre. That is, in the desire to refute thinking ability in dogs, one must carte blanche deny a lot of what people experience every day.

Lee Charles Kelley

And not one of them, including you, has yet come up with a situation that can't be explained purely through emotion, and which does NOT require conscious thought

This phrase, in particular. I and others have come up with various things that we reason are not adequately explained by just emotion which, btw, is a mental process. A mental process that can generate physical effects. For dogs, it might piloerection. For humans, tears. I would ask again how could you prove that it did not involve conscious thought. That is, your explanation through emotion does not negate what others find in anecdotal and truly scientific experiments to be true. I find your explanation to be an alternate explanation, possibly with some validity in a certain scope but I don't see how it invalidates or replaces the known facts, again, both anecdotal and scientific.

"Life is just a fantasy, can't I live my fantasy life ..." Aldo Nova.

 

FourIsCompany

One is where a woman puts a treat on the floor and tells her dog to leave it and sits down. After a moment, she closes her eyes and the dog goes and gets the treat. They did this over and over, in different types of experiments. It was concluded that the dog is aware that the person can see him when her eyes are open or otherwise unimpeded. The dog is aware of something more than it's own emotions and existence there. 

I have seen Ares behave like this. I have hidden where he thinks I can't see him, and I'll watch him look, and look again in the general direction where he thinks I am. When he has checked a couple times to be sure I can't see him (or he believes I can't) he will then head off to mischief that he wouldn't do in my presence (like getting into the garbage, digging in the yard). He also will nudge me when he's sleeping with me. In order for him to be allowed to sleep loose (the little trouble maker) he has to be on the bed. He's on a climb command, which means he isn't allowed to get off the bed. He is 99.9% solid (as good as a living creature can get) on this command. There are occasional nights where he'll come and nudge me. If I respond, he'll lie down and wait a few minutes before nudging again. I can guarantee that if I let fall asleep with him on the bed, sometime in the middle of the night, he'll break the climb and go off to get into something. I have pretended to be asleep by not responding to his nudges and after a couple tries, he is satisfied that I must be sleeping and he does wander off to get into mischief.

In light of this thread, I thought I'd share this National Geographic article that was in their most recent issue:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/03/animal-minds/virginia-morell-text/1 

The part pertaining specifically to dogs starts on page 4, I believe.....   

On the LCK blog is a link to Sattin's blog. Both are fans of, and Sattin states he was once an apprentice of Behan.

What is disturbing is that on Sattin's blog, he talks of using a shock collar to train a down. I am not making that up. And, call me a stupid stick in the mud, I wouldn't want to be part of a system that trains down with a shock collar. So, I wonder, did Behan come up with shock collars for down? Or is it derivative of "Natural Dog Training" as presented by Behan?

It's amazing, to me, that someone would want to use a shock collar for a down in spite of the articles we have referenced here that show the deleterious effects of shock collars. That the dogs will identify the shock with the presence of the human. That it affects the amygdala, permanently altering some brain function (and not for the good), and that it actually increases stress in the dog, even though the "natural dog training" is about relieving the mysterious tension your dog always possesses. "What do I do with this energy" and "where is that danger ( I must do something about it)". So, the shock collar helps? What the?

ron2

I wouldn't want to be part of a system that trains down with a shock collar.

 

That's why we have to pick and choose methodologies and tools from all that is available. I don't embrace any one way of thought wholly. But neither would I reject an entire "system" simply because I disagreed with one small piece. Natural Dog Training has a lot of good and interesting parts and pieces and should not be rejected as a whole because one person does something I (or you) disagree with, in my opinion. I have learned a lot about my dogs' prey drives by reading about Natural Dog Training.